When Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and illustrates it by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, he is saying that we are to love everybody according to their need. There are no exceptions to this command. In contrast to romantic love or friendship, love of neighbor is non-preferential love. We prefer to love our beloved, our loved ones, and our friends, because of our special, reciprocal relationships with them. We love them in part because they love us back. But neighbor love is love which is unselfish, which gives and expects nothing in return.

Jesus gives an example of this at a dinner party hosted by a prominent Pharisee, when he noticed how the guests were picking the places of honor at the table. “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Is this Jesus with tongue in cheek trying to make his point – don’t do something good to score an advantage over others?

This is an act of love that expects no return. It is unselfish love because those whom you invite cannot repay you. Yet you will be blessed by their gratitude, and at the final resurrection. A practical application of this might be that instead of spending lavishly on your friends to impress them, to guarantee your social acceptability, and to secure continuing good relationships, you will give to ministries to the needy.

If you find these words of Jesus difficult, what about the following application of loving your neighbor as yourself?

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners’, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will become sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

In the parable of the Good Samaritan it was the one who showed mercy who was neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers. Because God is merciful, we too are called to be merciful to others, including our enemies. Imagine if the victim on the road were your enemy, the person who had hurt you. What would you do? Rather than rushing to help him you might gloat a little. The temptation would be to rejoice in his downfall, and to believe that he got what was coming to him. But Jesus said that to be a neighbor is to show mercy. This means loving unconditionally every human being – a very difficult, if not impossible task. We cannot do it in our own strength. It is unnatural. We need the love, the mercy of God, in us, to enable us to do it. It is only Christ in us who can help us to love our enemies.

It may mean that when we are hardly able to endure the sight of our neighbor, because of what he has done to us, or what he represents, we have to shut our eyes, so that we do not see him when we do good to him. Jesus tells us that we must listen to the command of God, and to become like him in his loving all people, the just and the unjust, without distinction, and not to notice to whom we are showing mercy. Loving one’s neighbor makes us blind to distinctions so that we blindly love everyone. We see everyone as a creature of God and therefore kin to us. God has created all and Christ has redeemed all. Therefore we should not pay attention to the differences between people.

The Scriptures teach us that our neighbor is our equal in the sight of God. We do not love someone because we prefer them to others because of their education, or their cultural or social acceptability. We are always going to be tempted to love some people more than others because of their congeniality to us.

We are tempted to ignore a person who is different from us, as though he or she does not exist for us. We are tempted to avoid contact with people who inconvenience us, or embarrass us by their condition. This was the case of the man who fell into the hands of the robbers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The priest and the Levites passed by and ignored the man. They had their own circles in which they felt comfortable, and this man did not belong to them.

Most of us contrive to live only in our social circle and to shield ourselves from those outside it. This is unconscious. We are not aware that we do this. We may move from one familiar circle to another, but on the way we strive not to notice others, unless we should happen to meet someone who is more distinguished, with whom we want to be acquainted, or by whom we want to be noticed. It is important to us not to be seen among less important people, unless we are to be acknowledged as more important, and therefore we can be condescending, yet never so that we can be accused of offending or hurting them. We may be ready to be extremely courteous towards those below us on the social scale, but we must never associate with them as equals.

Academics, intellectuals, writers, actors, politicians, and artistic celebrities, may lecture enthusiastically on the necessity of loving all people equally, but they are anxious to maintain their understanding of their superior status. Those who enjoy great wealth may support the idea of loving their neighbor, but they do so at a distance, and try to separate themselves as much as possible from the common herd. From a distance of concealed patronizing it is easy to recognize and value loving one’s neighbor without distinction, for at a distance the neighbor is a figment of one’s imagination. It is when the man or woman walks by him, and is close at hand, that it is hard to recognize and value him as our neighbor. It is easy to generalize loving one’s neighbor; but harder when it comes down to a specific person.

We discover our neighbor when we follow Jesus, and walk with him. He leads us to recognize who is our neighbor, and how we ought to respond to him. It is one thing to understand that we ought to love our neighbor. It is another thing to act on that understanding. It is easy to think good thoughts, to make magnanimous vows, and to believe in good works. It is so much harder to do something about it.

St. James addressed this problem as it surfaced in the early church at their Sunday worship.

“My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes ….have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts….If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.”

Soren Kierkegaard argued that Christianity brought an understanding of equality into the world. The Gospel of Jesus taught that we all exist on an equal basis before God, whatever our status was in society. Therefore we should love one another without distinction.

Shakespeare wrote that:

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.”

Kierkegaard makes the point that when the curtain falls, the one who played the king, and the one who played the beggar, and all the others – they are all alike: actors. When in death the curtain falls, we are all one; we are all human beings. The distinctions of earthly existence are only like an actor’s costume that is cast off. At the end we all shed our roles. It is the height of deception and artistry for an actor to become his role in the play. But the differences between us are only a disguise for the purposes of the play. Each of us is a neighbor to the other. We do not exist as neighbors because of our distinctions but because of our common humanity. In being king, beggar, scholar, rich or poor, male or female, we do not resemble each other. In our roles we are all different. But in being a neighbor we are all unconditionally like each other. Our distinctions are temporary, but our neighborliness is eternal.

Take many sheets of paper and write something different on each one. Then they do not resemble each other. But hold each sheet up to the light and you see the same watermark on them all. Being the neighbor is the common mark, but you see it only by the help of the light of the Gospel when it shines through distinction.

Love is blind to distinctions. Love sees through the outward roles to the person God loves, and whom we are called to love in his name and power. When we see a person, what do we see? Do we see the outward disguise or the inward reality of the person? “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”  Jesus made no distinction between the people that he healed or helped. He ministered to the needs of the unclean, the lepers, the unlovely, the hungry, and the oppressed. He saw them all as sinners needing salvation. There was no racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, educational, or social distinction. He saw everyone as his neighbor.

This is not an optional commandment for Christians. Hard as it may be, we are all called to love our neighbor without distinction. It requires us to act on what we know to be true. It requires us seeking God’s strength to show God’s mercy to others.

What would the world be like if we lived out this commandment without distinction? It would mean that all the prejudices that divide us would be overcome. What would your world be like if you loved your neighbor without distinction? How would you see the people around you? How would you show them the love and mercy of God? How would you see your own way of relating to others outside your social circle? How would you love your enemies? Seek the mind and strength of the Spirit of Christ to fill you with his mercy.

GUIDE FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. Read Luke 14:12-14. How much do you think hospitality is motivated by the desire for reciprocation?

2. Read Luke 6:32-36. How can we love our enemies or those we dislike when they are in need?

3. How can we relate to people different from ourselves without condescension or being patronizing?

4. How do we avoid the hypocrisy of saying that we love our neighbor when it comes down to a specific person?

5. How does Jesus lead us to recognize who is our neighbor, and how we ought to respond to him?

6. How can we avoid showing people favoritism because they are attractive to us, while ignoring those who are not?

7. Read James 2:1-9. How can we love our neighbor in church?

8. What do you think of Shakespeare’s and Kierkegaard’s analogy that we are merely actors and that at the end of life we all shed our roles? How does it help you to love others?

9. What would the world be like if we made no distinction between people?

10. How would you relate to others outside your social circle?

The Gospels record that Jesus affirmed that the second great commandment is to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is easier said than done. It raises all sorts of questions in our minds. One of them, asked by a lawyer in order to narrow its application was, “Who is my neighbor?” But before I get to that let me ask this question: “How does God expect us to love our neighbor?” The answer is inherent in the commandment: apparently by our understanding of how we love ourselves. We are expected to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

One of the biggest barriers to loving our neighbor as ourselves is the inability to love ourselves as God loves us. Many hate themselves, or what they have become, and have no love to give to others. Many love themselves in the wrong way, and seek to bolster their love of themselves in self-destructive ways. So they drug and drink themselves to death, or cause the violent deaths of others.

Soren Kierkegaard wrote that there is a proper and an improper form of self-love. There is selfish love of self, and there is a spiritual love of self. The person who does not know how to love himself properly is not capable of loving others. He is so obsessed with his own need for love that he cannot relate positively to others. The ‘selfish,’ exclusive love of self, does not care for anyone beyond himself. The ‘proper,’ inclusive love of self, seeks the good of others, because it recognizes what it needs for oneself.

When a person degrades herself by allowing herself to be used by others and exploited, she has not learned to love herself. When a person allows himself to be bought, bribed, or otherwise corrupted, he has not rightly learned to love himself. When a person seeks power and fame, and abuses it for his own satisfaction, he has not learned to love himself rightly. When a woman becomes a doormat for her husband and enables him in his tyranny, she has not learned to rightly love herself. When a man wastes his time and energy in the service of empty accomplishments in order to boost his ego, he has not rightly learned to love himself. When the frivolous woman throws herself into social engagements in order to escape her loneliness, she does not understand how to love herself rightly. The woman who is depressed or otherwise self-destructive, who surrenders to despair because she has been betrayed or rejected, does not know how to love herself rightly. When a man who is self-tormented tries to martyr himself, or take his own life, he does not have a genuine understanding of how a man ought to love himself. When a person measures his worth by the standards of success in the culture, and feels himself a failure, he does not possess proper self love.

What is legitimate self-love? If we are called to love everyone, that includes ourselves. No one is to be excluded from our love, not even ourselves. If we value God’s creation, God’s gifts, we must value ourselves as one of those gifts. If God values us then we cannot but do otherwise. If God, by his grace, finds us worthy of love, then we should also. “We love because he first loved us.” We learn what love is from seeing how God loves us. We appreciate God’s love by recognizing how high a price he has set on us in the Cross.

Proper self-love is the standard by which we shall love our neighbor. We ought to love our neighbor as we ought to love ourselves. We ought to love our neighbors as we are loved by God. We love ourselves by seeking God’s kingdom, seeking his truth, seeking his blessing, seeking his fulfillment and satisfaction, seeking his goals for our lives. We love ourselves by seeking God’s best for us. We love ourselves by taking care of ourselves. It is our responsibility to take care of ourselves so that we have the ability to love others, to have something to give them. What we want for ourselves we will want for others We have a need for forgiveness, for respect, for love, for health and wholeness..

In the parable of the Good Samaritan we can identify with, either the victim, who has been left half dead by the side of the road, or the other travelers. The priest and the Levite, who hurry on past, lest they too are assaulted, are insecure. They see anyone who needs help to be beneath them. They are too wrapped up in themselves, and their self-sufficiency, to consider the needs of someone else. Theirs is a selfish self-love, turned in on themselves, because of their insecurity.

If we identify with the victim we can imagine how we would like to be treated by others. We know how we would like to be loved by realizing how we ourselves would like to be treated under the same circumstances. The kind of care the Samaritan provided is an illustration of the kind of care we believe is implied by the qualification “as yourself.” This is the teaching of the Golden Rule: “do to others what you would have them do to you.” He does what we would like others to do for us: dressing our wounds, taking us to a hotel, and taking care of us until we recover, to continue our journey unaided.

The victim stands for anyone who is mugged on the road that is life. The wounds received may be emotional rather than physical. The roadside may be a family in which there is much emotional pain that is covered over and denied. The family or the relationship may be controlling and manipulative. The robbers may be those who hold emotional power over the victim, who strip him or her of his sense of self love, beat him down over the years, and leave him to live a diminished life – half alive, and half dead. The antagonists may be priests and Levites, religious people, church people, upstanding in the community; but nonetheless robbers of the lives of those they abuse. There is no freedom to become your own person, to form your own God-given identity, in that relationship. So many people are robbed of a healthy self love by those who beat them down and expect them to conform to what they expect them to be, instead of what God has created them to be. So much domestic violence takes place because of lack of proper self love.

A person with proper self love has such a healthy regard for himself, and a sense of the worth of his own identity in Christ, that he does not have to cling onto another in a co-dependent way. He is willing to give up the other person, to allow him to distance himself, to let go in the relationship, for the sake of the good of the other person. So many friendships, and family relationships are unhealthy because one person sees the other person as a way of fulfilling themselves in a co-dependent way. That person can be like a parasite, sucking the life out of the other. If we love the other person, such as our child, we are willing to let her go her own way for the sake of her future growth. To love our neighbor as ourselves means not to cling on to them (for we do not want others to cling on to us), or stifle them with our expectations and claims on them. We value our independence. Therefore, we would not demand that our neighbor, or family member, become like us, or model themselves on us, or agree with us, in order to be accepted. To love our neighbor as ourselves is to respect the separate identity of the other person, and to rejoice in their independent development apart from us.

Loving our neighbor as ourselves is a safeguard against loving our neighbor less than ourselves, as well as loving others more than ourselves. To love others more than ourselves is to beggar oneself, to not take care of ourselves so that we cannot continue to love others. How can we love our neighbor if we do not love ourselves? Part of the problem of the human condition is that we are conflicted about ourselves. On the one hand we can love ourselves too much and become egotistical. On the other hand we can love ourselves too little and become envious of others. If the former we then see others as serving our needs by using them to fulfill our egotistical desires. If the latter we see ourselves as victims and others as being privileged. In both cases we believe that our relationships with others can become means to ends in fulfilling our needs. In other words our self-centeredness causes us to find ways to use others for our fulfillment. That is why some people use politics to manipulate others to do their will.

Envy of others causes us to want to find ways to become like them either by motivating us to achieve what we perceive them to have or by seeking ways to take from them what we desire to have for ourselves. The first way leads us to excel in whatever way we can in education, sports, marriage, the arts, business or public affairs. The second way leads us to crime, intrigue, socialism, acquisitions, military aggression, manipulation, blackmail and fraud.

Egotism causes us to want to use others for our fulfillment by domination, bullying, sexual promiscuity, and subjugation. The egotist wants to recreate others into his image, to remodel others, to push his agenda, to exalt his ideas, to silence his opponents, to crush the other person’s individuality or make life miserable for him.

The problem for our society is when these attitudes become enshrined in our politics. The only antidote to save us from these attitudes is to discover who we really are and what our needs are in relation to God. Jesus prefaced this command by saying that the first commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind and strength. By repenting of our self-centeredness and turning to God for our forgiveness and redemption we put God, our Creator and Savior, first in our lives and ask for the empowering of the Holy Spirit to love ourselves properly. If this is done we can find ways to deal with our envy and our egotism and discover our true spiritual nature in Christ by becoming a new creation.

Jesus said that we should love ourselves as we would love our neighbor, for to love oneself in the right way, and to love our neighbor is the same thing. When you love yourself in the same way as you love your neighbor, you love your neighbor as yourself. The teaching of Christ is that a person should love his neighbor as himself, that is, as he ought to love himself. Is this something you do? Is this something you need to work on for yourself, and for those you love? What do you need to do in order to love your neighbor as yourself?

GUIDE FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. How do you balance the need to acknowledge your sins and need for forgiveness with proper self-love?

2. How does the awareness of our own need for forgiveness affect our attitude to others?

3. What is the difference between a proper and an improper form of self-love?

4. Give an example from your experience of lack of proper self-love.

5. How do we love ourselves properly?

6. Who do you identify with in the Parable of the Good Samaritan? Why?

7. How can we avoid confusing loving our neighbor with co-dependency?

8. What is the antidote to envy and egotism?

FDR’s Address to the Nation: 82 Years Ago Today

“My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas — whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them–help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.”

(Copied with thanks from Erick-Woods Erickson: 82 Years Ago Today)

To love someone at all times is not easy. To learn to love is a life’s work. It requires everything of us. Love challenges us every day.

Sometimes when I walk on the beach I come across a heart scratched in the sand, with the names of two people entwined in it. The next day the impression has been erased by the tide. Love should not be so easily destroyed. Relationships are precious to us. They affect our deepest emotions. Our greatest joys come from fulfilling relationships of love, and our greatest sorrows come from the ending of those relationships.

We have been created by a God whose essence is love. We are made in his image to have relationships of love with one another. Jesus said that the most important commandment was to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Therefore, we fulfill the purpose of our creation when we love God and our neighbor in this way. But that is easier said than done. How do we go about it? What does it mean for me today to love others? How can I do it? That is the subject of this book.

Zygmunt Bauman, Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds and the University of Warsaw, characterized the present age as ‘liquid.’ In his book “Liquid Love” he describes post-modern relationships as lacking commitment. Relationships are fluid, they are not trustworthy, they are unlikely to last. The meaning of the word love has been devalued. Sexually it describes a passing experience rather than an enduring affection. One-night stands, hooking up with strangers, are talked about under the code name of ‘making love’.

Love is seen as a skill, a commodity in a consumer culture that can be acquired at little cost to the customer. Like availability of credit, casual love takes the ‘waiting out of wanting’. It is a fast food that satisfies immediate need but can affect your long-term health if that is your only nourishment. People become disposable. Like unwanted gifts they can be returned or exchanged for a new and improved version. Partnerships are not expected to last for a lifetime. A relationship is an investment, and like a stock, you hold it as long as it promises to rise in value, and sell it when it begins to falter. The relationship only lasts as long as it produces value for you.

Living together does not require a down-payment, there is less mortgage to repay, and the length of the repayment is less daunting. There is no commitment to future kinship. All options stay open. Unconditional commitment ‘till death us do part’, for better for worse and for richer and poorer is seen as a trap that needs to be avoided at all costs. Temporary ‘we will see how it works’ cohabitation means that you are only as good as your last encounter. You are at the mercy of constant evaluation. You have surrendered your assets to your partner, and are subject to emotional blackmail. Survival is tenuous. Such liquid love is unstable. When the tide of ‘love’ runs out there is a feeling of being used, of being depleted, rejected, of having failed to please. All there is to show for the experience are disappointed hopes.

This is also the case for serial marriage – the marriages that do not last but end in divorce. Many times such a marriage is doomed because one of the partners is not prepared to grow in solid love for the other. Instead of the relationship being affirming and life-giving, it is characterized by hurt and abuse.

Lack of solid love also affects having children. Starting a family is delayed until it is convenient. A baby has to be wanted! Children may bring joy but they also can threaten your career. You may have to choose between having a baby and achieving your professional ambitions. Love of your neighbor (in this case your baby) may compete with love of yourself – and are you not supposed to love your neighbor as yourself?

In contrast to this modern conception of love as liquid, the Bible proposes a love that is solid. It is meant to endure all vicissitudes: love never ends. If God is love, and we are made for love, then love may be described in all its dimensions: length, height, and depth. Solid love is greater than ourselves. It requires concentration, thought, effort, willpower, motivation, and application. Learning to love is the task of a lifetime. It is a challenge to grow into maturity. It is the journey to wholeness. It is the struggle of unselfishness over self-centeredness. It is hard, for our self-absorption, our ego, our sinfulness, has such a tight hold on us.

Soren Kierkegaard expressed the character of love in many of his writings. He eloquently articulated the importance of love:

“What is it that makes a person great, admired by creation, well pleasing in the eyes of God? What is it that makes a person strong, stronger than the whole world; what is it that makes him weak, weaker than a child? What is it that makes a person unwavering, more unwavering than a rock; what is it that makes him soft, softer than wax? — it is love!

What is it that is older than everything? It is love. What is it that outlives everything? It is love. What is it that cannot be taken but itself takes all? It is love. What is it that cannot be given but itself gives all? It is love. What is it that perseveres when everything falls away? It is love. What is it that comforts when all comfort fails? It is love.

What is it that endures when everything is changed? It is love. What is it that remains when the imperfect is abolished? It is love. What is it that witnesses when prophecy is silent? It is love. What is it that does not cease when the vision ends? It is love. What is it that sheds light when the dark saying ends? It is love.

What is it that gives blessing to the abundance of the gift? It is love. What is it that gives pith to the angel’s words? It is love. What is it that makes the widow’s gift an abundance? It is love. What is it that turns the words of the simple person into wisdom? It is love.

What is it that is never changed even though everything is changed? It is love; and that alone is love, that which never becomes something else.”

On the 150^th anniversary of the dedication of All Souls Church in 1974, John Stott concluded a sermon (with apologies to Martin Luther King, Jr.) with his dream for the future of the church.

I have a dream of a church that is a biblical church – which is loyal in every particular to the revelation of God in Scripture, whose pastors expound Scripture with integrity and relevance, and so seek to present every member mature in Christ, whose people love the word of God, and adorn it with an obedient and Christ-like life, which is preserved from all unbiblical emphases, whose whole life manifests the health and beauty of biblical balance.

I have a dream of a church which is a worshipping church – whose people come together to meet God and worship him, who know God is always in their midst and who bow down before him in great humility, who regularly frequent the table of the Lord Jesus, to celebrate his mighty act of redemption on the cross, who enrich the worship with their musical skills, who believe in prayer and lay hold of God in prayer, whose worship is expressed not only in Sunday services and prayer gatherings only but also in their homes, their weekday work and the common things of life.

I have a dream of a church which is a caring church – whose congregation is drawn from many races, nations, ages and social backgrounds, and exhibits the unity and diversity of the family of God, whose fellowship is warm and welcoming, and never marred by anger, selfishness, jealousy or pride, whose members love one another with a pure heart fervently, forbearing one another, forgiving one another, and bearing one another’s burdens, which offers friendship to the lonely, support to the weak, and acceptance of those who are despised and rejected by society, whose love spills over to the world outside, attractive, infectious, irresistible, the love of God himself.

I have a dream of a church which is a serving church – which has seen Christ as the Servant and has heard his call to be a servant too, which is delivered from self-interest, turned inside out, and giving itself selflessly to the service of others, whose members obey Christ’s command to live in the world, to permeate secular society, to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, whose people share the good news of Jesus simply, naturally and enthusiastically with their friends, which diligently serves its own parish, residents and workers, families and single people, nationals and immigrants, old folk and little children, which is alert to the changing needs of society, sensitive and flexible enough to keep adapting its program to serve more usefully, which has a global vision and is constantly challenging its young people to give their lives in service, and constantly sending its people out to serve.

I have a dream of a church which is an expectant church – whose members can never settle down in material affluence or comfort, because they remember that they are strangers and pilgrims on earth, which is all the more faithful and active because it is waiting and looking for its Lord to return, which keeps the flame of the Christian hope burning brightly in a dark despairing world, which on the day of Christ will not shrink from him in shame, but rise up joyfully to greet him.

(Ted Schroder, JOHN STOTT: A SUMMARY OF HIS TEACHING, pp.65-66)

There are few books that I agree with 100 percent but this is one. THE DESECRATION OF MAN: HOW THE REJECTION OF GOD DEGRADES OUR HUMANITY by Carl R. Trueman, is a unflinching exposé of our secular society from the perspective of the biblical faith. It confronts the nature of the human condition that is at the roots of all our moral ills. Instead of humanity being marked by personal responsibility, moral limits, moral obligations, and specific moral ends today’s we see the ways in which godlessness manifests itself.

First, desecration is involved in any move to eliminate human exceptionalism and turn human beings into merely one animal among others. Man is just another species randomly cast up on the shores of existence.

Second, desecration happens when one human being treats another as a thing or an object, as a commodity to be used or destroyed for one’s own selfish benefit.

Third, there is desecration in any belief that human beings are capable of creating their own ends in any absolute or final sense so setting ourselves up as personal gods without regard for the well-being of others.

Today the struggle in the world is over our definition of what is man and why he or she exists. This is called anthropology. What does it mean that we are created in the image and God and what for? What is our purpose and meaning? “What is man?” is the question of our time. The modern myth is that we are autonomous, unencumbered by any transcendent belief in God to do with our lives what we will regardless of the consequences. What responsibilities does our belief place upon us? What does it mean for our bodies. How should our beliefs shape the way we interact with other? The major questions of our day are ethical, and ethics rest upon that deeper question of what it means to be human.

Trueman deals with our culture of endless sex, mechanical reproduction and the denial and trivialization of death.

What we saw in Germany during World War II and decried as barbarous is now enshrined in our culture. Well educated Germans from good homes engaged in the most bestial acts of violence against those he had been taught to regard as subhuman vermin. This was because of the loss of the sacred about human life. As the poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote:

Without religious and metaphysical underpinning, the word man is too ambiguous a term, is it not? From the moment it is deprived of traits such as an immortal soul and redemption through Christ, does it not disintegrate into a vast number of possibilities, of which some are better, others worse, some deserving of protection and cultivation, and others of absolute extinction.

Genetic science, artificial reproduction, abortion of unwanted, or disabled children, IVF and surrogacy deliver bespoke babies made to order. Euthanasia practiced by the Nazi has now become lawful with assisted suicide. Sex as recreation only and the prevalence of digital pornography has degraded the intimacy of relationships. Gender as a social construction rather than a biological reality has confused adolescents.

We are not free-floating selves of the modern cultural imagination but rather beings who are made to exist in relationships with others who are persons, not objects or things. As with sex, so with death: the modern attitude that seeks to trivialize it crashes up against the reality of our experience of it. The incoherent approaches to death in the modern world – by turns, marginalizing it, ignoring it, medicalizing it, and trivializing it – all indicate a basic inability to come to terms with it. Like the traditional sacredness of sex, death’s loss of this sense of the sacred is not a trivial cultural matter but something of great importance. The lie that sits at the heart of the desecration of man is the idea that we have neither given limits nor ends, that we are obliged to nobody, and that we can live this way with impunity.

This book needs to be chosen for study groups in all sections of our society to inform and alert ourselves to the disease of our age and its cure.

I will never forget my first Memorial Day weekend in the USA. That Sunday morning in 1971 after I led the prayers at Christ Church, in Hamilton-Wenham, Massachusetts, I was greeting the worshipers at the door when a lady said to me, “You didn’t mention Memorial Day in your prayers.” I apologized and pled ignorance. She introduced herself as the wife of General George Patton, the son of the celebrated World War II general. I never forgot Memorial Day after that!

Fifty million people died in the second World War. Europe had been destroyed, millions had been driven from their homes and wandered the highways of Europe, displaced and starving. The Allies gave Europeans true liberation from oppression and dictatorship in terms of moral righteousness. The free, democratic Western Europe that emerged after the war was the product of ordinary Americans who died by the thousands. About 135,000 Americans died between D-Day and V-E Day.

As an undergraduate I studied the origins of the First World War – the war to end all wars – it was called. While my grandfathers’ generation would not have recognized it, there is no doubt that the domino effect of the first World War occasioned the Russian Revolution and the spread of Communism, contributed to the Depression, the rise of Fascism, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Holocaust, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and the present hostilities in the Middle East. Today the carnage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a reminder of the delusions of the autocrats who have caused so much suffering to that part of the world over the past century.

George Weigel, in The Cube and the Cathedral, notes St. Paul’s passage from Troy in Asia Minor to Philippi on the European mainland did more to shape the future of European culture and European history than anything recorded about that place and time by Livy and the other great historians of his day. Paul’s crossing over to Philippi took place underneath the surface of history so that those who even noticed that an itinerant rabbi from Tarsus had come to Europe and was preaching another king than Caesar couldn’t grasp the significance of what was being said. But its invisibility to those writing history in the first century A.D. was no true measure of what was really important for the human future in the affairs of first century Asia Minor.

Similarly, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn claims that the horrors of the twentieth century wars may be traced back to World War I.

The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century. The first of these was World War I, and much of our present predicament can be traced back to it. That war… took place when Europe, bursting with health and abundance, fell into a rage of self-mutilation that could not but sap its strength for a century or more and perhaps forever. The only possible explanation for this is a mental eclipse among the leaders of Europe due to their lost awareness of a Supreme Power above them… Only the loss of that higher intuition which comes from God could have allowed the West to accept calmly after World War I, the protracted agony of Russia as she was being torn apart by a bunch of cannibals… The West did not perceive that this was in fact the beginning of a lengthy process that spells disaster for the whole world.” (Weigel, 33)

George Weigel argued that World War I was a product of a crisis of civilizational morality, a failure of moral reason, in a culture that had given the world the very concept of moral reason. That crisis of moral reason led to a crisis of civilizational morale that is much with us today – what we cherish, honor and worship. We honor the memory of those who died for our freedom by understanding the roots of national conflict and applying ourselves to doing what we can to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. But it seems we never learn and never will. Secular idealism and utopian thinking is no substitute for realistic national security.

Jesus, in his Mount of Olives discourse (Matthew 24) prophesied the ending of the Jewish nation. His words also apply to any period of national history.

“Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. [Nietzsche, Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Putin etc.] You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pangs.”

The history of the world will always be filled with conflict between nations and peoples. But there is another history being written. We, who believe in Christ and follow him as our Savior, and Commander-in-chief, are citizens of two kingdoms: this world and the kingdom of heaven. We are called to fulfill our obligations in both kingdoms. This world will eventually pass away, as we all will do some day. The Christian hope is that we will be reborn into another Age to come where there will be no more war: “no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

This world will be the arena of much suffering. There is much evil in the world. There are many people who are our enemies and are enemies of Christ. Terrible things are done. Injustice and cruelties abound. The daily newspaper and television give us all the gory details. The battlefields are not just overseas, but often in our communities, our businesses, our government, and in our homes and marriages. We must be prepared to suffer in the name of Christ and serve our nation.

“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:9-14)

In the midst of suffering those who stand firm to the end will be saved. To stand firm for Christ and his kingdom we continue to hope rather than give in to despair; we seek the empowering of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us; we persevere in prayer; we resist the devil and overcome his temptations with the Word of God; we are assured of the loving Presence of the Savior to uphold us and protect us in the midst of conflict and discouragement in the front lines of battle.

The world needs the gospel of the kingdom of heaven to be preached as a testimony to all nations. It is the only sure antidote to nationalism, greed, the lust for power, and the cruelty of humanity. We honor our sacred dead by ensuring that their sacrifice was not in vain. This we do by witnessing to the gospel of Christ: the gospel of love, and not hate; of peace, and not hostility; of freedom, and not bondage; of justice, and not oppression; of human dignity and respect; of courage and not cowardice. For that we need the supernatural power of the Spirit of Christ.

On the Feast of Pentecost (fifty days after the Passover), seven weeks after the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples were gathered in Jerusalem. They had been told by Jesus not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the gift his Father had promised, which they had heard him speak about: the baptism of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 1:4,5) As they were worshiping together they received this gift of the Holy Spirit in a spectacular fashion: through wind and tongues of fire that came to rest on each of them.

One result was that three thousand accepted the message of the Gospel, as proclaimed by Peter, and were baptized into the church. Since then we have celebrated this day as the birthday of the Christian church.

Genesis tells us in the creation story, that the difference between the first man and other primates, was the result of God breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. In this creation story of the church in Acts, God breathed his Spirit into those who believed in Christ. So today we celebrate the new birth, the new life of the Spirit, which marks the beginning of the family of the church of Jesus Christ. It is a day, for all who believe in Christ, to celebrate our life in the family of God.

Birthdays should be exciting times. They celebrate the gift of life. They should make us feel special. Friends and family remember us by sending cards, calling us, and sometimes even giving us parties and presents. As Christians we should feel special and appreciate the new life God has given us in Christ. This new life, this eternal life, is made possible by the gift of his Spirit. We must be careful not to take this gift for granted. Sometimes we are given gifts that we do not need. We wonder what to do with them. Why do we need the gift of the Holy Spirit?

We need the gift of the Holy Spirit to know the truth. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth (John 14:17). Spirit means breath or wind. At Pentecost the Spirit came with a sound like the blowing of a violent wind. The life-giving breath of God blows our ship of life in the direction of the truth. Without it we are likely to be blown off course. There are many spirits in the world. We live in a universe of philosophies, and faiths which proliferate in our pluralistic and global society. Each vies for our attention. If we are not sure of our course, in what direction is the truth, we can be blown in the wrong direction. God is a God of truth. He does not want us to be blown here and there by every wind. St. Paul urges us to become mature in Christ so that “we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.” (Ephesians 4:14) The danger is to be found at the mercy of the elements, i.e. of every and any opinion.

Let’s face it, every day we hear conflicting claims to be the truth. Is there any clear criteria by which we can distinguish truth from error? The Spirit is meant to guide us to the truth. (John 16:13) Where does it guide us? Jesus said that the Spirit of truth would speak about him. “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the spirit of truth, who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.” (John 15:26) Jesus revealed that he was the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). The point that Peter made on the day of Pentecost, was that Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead, was both Lord and Christ, who brought the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. He brought also the truth about God and about life. Jesus gives us the Spirit when we believe in him, (John 7:38,39). The Spirit also guides us to Jesus as the criterion of truth. The winds of the world can be tested for their veracity by whether or not they bring us closer to Jesus.

St. John writes, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.” (1 John 4:1-3)

Those who claim to possess the truth and yet reject Jesus as Savior are misled as to what constitutes the truth. Dostoevsky once wrote about his struggle to believe. He longed for faith and yet was a child of unfaith and skepticism.

And yet God gives me sometimes the moments of perfect peace; in such moments I have formulated my creed, wherein all is clear and holy to me. This creed is extremely simple; here it is: I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational, more manly, and more perfect than the Savior: I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there no one else like him, but that there could be no one. I would even say more: If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth. (March 1854).

We believe that whatever may be the claims to proofs that Christ is not the truth, that they are spurious.

How does the Holy Spirit communicate this truth about Jesus to us today? In what form does the wind of the Spirit direct us? St. Peter tells us that the wind carried along the writers of the prophetic Scriptures so that they wrote down the inspired truth of God for our edification. (2 Peter 1:21) The gift of the Spirit of truth is wrapped up in the pages of the Holy Scriptures. God has given us all we need to know about Jesus in the pages of his written Word. We call this the sufficiency of Holy Scripture for our salvation. (2 Tim. 3:15,16)

Jesus said that the world cannot accept the Spirit of truth because it neither sees him nor knows him. (John 14:17). Those who do not share our faith suppress the truth about Jesus, and resist the Spirit’s direction. This is true for any kind of knowledge which a person may find uncongenial.

In April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine suffered a meltdown.. The Soviet system was still in power. When the nuclear reactor exploded sending a radioactive cloud all the way to Scandinavia, the Soviet government was silent. Under international pressure the Soviet authorities said that a nuclear meltdown did not happen, or it was not as bad as it was thought to be, or it had been solved. That was the extent of the information that was allowed to be disseminated to the citizens of the Soviet Union. They refused to admit the truth. In the same way a closed heart and mind and spirit can simply refuse to admit evidence of the reality of the Spirit of truth. The citizens of Jerusalem would only interpret the joy of the apostles, at their birthday party, as being drunk. They suppressed the possibility that God’s Spirit had come to fulfill prophecy. “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, made into a movie starring Tom Hanks, appealed to the search for an alternative to Jesus and his gift of the Spirit of truth. By attempting to discredit the Biblical Gospel it promoted a form of self-discovery, particularly discovery of gender-based aspects of ‘myself’, such as the sacred feminine. But the Spirit of truth directs us, away from an introspective search for our true feelings of personal identity (a never-ending black hole of egotism), to what God has done for us in Jesus.

This is why we, and the whole world, need this birthday gift. When Peter received this birthday gift he did not keep it to himself, but shared it with the Jerusalem crowd. He told them that this gift is “for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:39) We, and the world, need the truth about ourselves, and God; the truth about life and salvation; the truth about love and grace; the truth about forgiveness and healing; the truth about this world, and the world to come. Welcome and receive this gift, and allow the Spirit to renew and refresh you with his presence. Share it with others.

The Ascension of Jesus is celebrated on the 40^th day after Easter Sunday (Acts 1:4). Because it is always a Thursday it tends to be overlooked and neglected. Yet the Ascension of Jesus is the culmination of his earthly life. It confirms his identity, and speaks to us of our destiny. Without the Ascension what would Jesus have done? Would he have hung around the disciples, appearing to them from time to time to instruct and guide them? Would he have gradually faded away, like a ghost? Would his presence among them have delayed the coming of the Holy Spirit? Would his frequent post-resurrection appearances have altered our understanding of our resurrection? Would they have fostered a belief in some sort of spiritual presence, an after-life on this earth rather than in heaven? What does the Ascension of Jesus have to say to us about our own future life?

The belief of the early church was that Jesus, at the end of forty days of teaching about the kingdom of God, was taken up to heaven before the very eyes of the disciples. A cloud hid him from their sight. “They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white, stood beside them. ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’” (Acts 1:10,11)

The resurrected human body of Jesus was taken up into heaven. This is significant. No longer would his body walk on this earth until his coming again. The bones of Jesus do not lie in a tomb, or anywhere else. He is resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven. By doing this he completes his earthly mission. By completing the cycle of birth, death, resurrection and ascension, he pioneers our entry into heaven. What he did forty days after his resurrection, we are destined to do if we are in Christ. We follow him into the heavenly realms, where he is “in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything.” (Ephesians 1:21-22 The Message)

The first Christians were so thrilled by this message that they wrote hymns about it. St. Paul includes one such early hymn, in his letter to Timothy.

“Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great:

He appeared in a body,

was vindicated by the Spirit,

was seen by angels,

was preached among the nations,

was believed on in the world,

was taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16)

The Gospel message is described as “the mystery of godliness”, i.e. a divine mystery that, instead of being hidden, has been revealed to us so that we do not have to be ignorant of God’s purpose. It is a revelation of ‘godliness’ i.e. of living in a reverent personal relationship with God, a recognition of our place in creation, a desire to live to our highest potential, in harmony with his plan for our lives. It is to live in reverence for God rather than in rebellion against God and his loving purpose for us. Such a life is aligned with our heavenly Father’s design for us. It is in contrast to the life that is opposed or indifferent or in rebellion to God’s purpose for us. Such a life, that does not want to acknowledge or reverence God, is called ungodly. It is hollow and self-destructive.

The Gospel message depends on these truths:

1. The eternal Son of God, existing as pure spirit before Time, was made visible in his earthly life, when he became a human being.

2. Christ’s profound claims were vindicated by his miracles, climaxing in his resurrection; these were sure evidences that he was the sinless Son of God.

3. During his earthly ministry angels watched over him, his birth and resurrection were witnessed by the heavenly host.

4. After his death and resurrection, his message was proclaimed to all races.

5. All different kinds of people responded by putting their faith in him.

6. Finally, he was exalted to the glorious presence of God in heaven. This was the climax of his earthly ministry.

This, if it is “beyond all question”, is “great”. The Christian Gospel is Christ-centered. It is the proclamation of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the glorified Lord of all. What does this have to do with us?

Jesus ascended so that we too, might ascend with him. We are united with him, by grace through faith. We are part of his Body. If we are in him we can look forward to being taken up into glory. He pioneered the way for us. He took his human body into heaven so that we too, might be taken into the presence of God. This destination is called “glory”.

There is no greater anxiety than having to go on a journey to an unfamiliar destination, and having to endure discomfort on the way. Given our druthers we would all prefer to travel first class, at minimum personal inconvenience, to our favorite destination. When we face death we are aware of how little control we have over the process and the outcome. Just as we had no choice over the circumstances of our entry in this world, so we have no choice over the timing and manner of our exit. But we do have some control over how we prepare for the journey. We make decisions about our wardrobe, we pack our bags, and we purchase our tickets so that we are ready and not unprepared for our trip. Similarly we get ready for our final journey in this life by putting our affairs in order and learning what we can about our destiny. The Ascension of Jesus, the mystery of godliness, tells us that our destination is glory. We need not fear the end because it will be glorious. We are shown in the Ascension of Jesus that we will be taken into heaven, into the glorious presence of God. We will not be leaving anything worth clinging onto. Instead we will be entering into something wonderful. This life is not worth prolonging compared to what lies ahead of us. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him – but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 2:9,10)

Recently I came across this quotation from Soren Kierkegaard:

“Man’s eternal dignity consists in the fact that he can have a history, the divine element in him consists in the fact that he himself, if he will, can impart to this history continuity, for this it acquires only when it is not the sum of all that has happened to me…. but is my own work, in such a way that even what has befallen me is by me transformed and translated from necessity to freedom.” (Either/Or 2:254-255)

We all have a history. It makes us different from animals and gives us an eternal dignity. We can self-consciously give to it some purpose and meaning as a result of our choices which led us from our origins to new possibilities to where we are today. In my eighty fifth year I am prompted to look back on my life and consider my history, from whence I have come to where I am today.

Winston Churchill wrote about his childhood: “When does one first begin to remember? When do the waving lights and shadows of dawning consciousness cast their print upon the mind of a child? My earliest memories are Ireland.” (A Roving Commission, 1)

Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, “My life began in a small semi-detached house in Sanderstead, part of the dormitory town of Croydon. This was in 1903, when there were still traces of its village past.” (Chronicles of Wasted Time, 23)

My life began in a small hotel in Hokitika, a county town of 3,000 souls serving a gold-mining, timber milling and farming community at the mouth of the river emptying into the Tasman Sea on the west. On the east the Southern Alps mountain range was snow-clad most of the year. My parents took over the hotel in 1935 from my maternal grandparents who bought it in 1922. My great-grandparents were pioneer settlers of the town in 1865 and owned several businesses. My earliest memories are of living in a three bedroom suite on the second floor of the hotel with my parents and my older sister, taking my meals in the dining room, spending time with the staff in the kitchen and their sitting room, feeding the chickens, and chopping kindling for the fireplaces. Being born in 1941 I remember the Second World War and participating in the parade that celebrated the surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945. I was sent to kindergarten and then to primary school where I learned to read and write.

Next to the hotel were the railway lines and on the other side was the railway station reached by a pedestrian bridge. My bedroom looked out on the railroad yards where the train-trucks were loaded and unloaded with freight, sheep, or cattle. When the circus came to town I watched elephants, lions, tigers and other animals exiting their boxcars. On race days thoroughbred horses were led out of their booths. As my father was Vice-President of the Racing Club I spent some time at the race track where we would have tail gate picnics and watched the races. A relative had a harness horse, Grattan Bay, that ran trotting races where the jockey sat in a sulky behind it. As every town had its own racing club we would travel to each event during the year. The only reading my father did was the racing and sports pages of the newspapers. I never saw him read a book! He was an avid golfer and a member of the local lawn bowling club.

My father was also the Patron of the Excelsior Rugby Club for which he played in his early years. Photographs of the teams he played on adorned the walls of the public bar. I was expected to follow in his steps and played rugby all through school and eventually for that club after I graduated from university. Cass Square, where all the rugby matches were played was only a block away from our hotel. We would host visiting rugby teams at the hotel where they changed and showered after their matches at the facilities we had specially set aside for them.

My mother owned and ran the hotel. She was the business manager, kept the books, supervised the staff, ordered supplies, checked in guests, did the laundry and sent it out every week. I was given the jobs of ironing sheets and pillow cases on a rotary press, pumping oil for the water boiler, keeping kerosene heaters supplied, mopping floors, and cleaning bathrooms, as well as mowing the lawns. I was kept busy all the time. There was no home life as we lived our lives in public.

However I discovered comics, magazines and books. I would purchase all the boys’ magazines such as The Wizard, Beano, Rover and Eagle every week, and devoured all the Classics Illustrated Comics. After my mother put my light out every night I would read them under the bedclothes with a flashlight. I would regularly visit the local Carnegie Public Library and take out books by Frank Baum, John Galsworthy, Somerset Maugham, Dostoevsky, Enid Blyton, Baroness Orcsky, Agatha Christie and many others. I haunted my school library and became Head Librarian. I learned to love history and geography as well as English literature. One Christmas my parents gave me a ten volume set of The Children’s Encyclopedia by Arthur Mee which contained sections on Science, Biographies of famous men and women, interesting stories, world history, Art, Physiology, Horticulture, Countries of the world, Poetry, Electronics, Literature, Ideas, The Bible, and school lessons on reading, writing, mathematics, music and French. I still have them. They expanded my knowledge and gave me a thirst for more education. At school I found that I could not read the blackboard and began to wear eyeglasses which was a handicap when playing sports. Suffering from bronchitis and hayfever I was not as robust as I wanted to be and had to exert myself to prove my physical ability. No doubt that motivated me to become competitive and assertive. I excelled in track and held the school record for the quarter and half mile.

Ben Sasse, former senator from Nebraska 2015-23, in a speech accepting the Manhattan Institute’s Alexander Hamilton Award published in the Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2026 gives some starter habits for young people to cultivate. One is reading. Fewer than half of Americans read a book. Shorter attention spans are killing our imagination. Children need affection for books. We need to teach our kids to fall in love with reading and show them that the endless dialogue between ideas is more rewarding than the endless scrolling of social media. The second is hard work. This habit can start at an early age. Young men especially need work. Right now we are insulating our children from work, on average until they are in their mid-20s, and by then lots of them turn out not to be able to learn how to do it. I had the opportunity to read voraciously and to contribute to the family business through hard work. My early history introduced me to the tools that prepared me for a lifetime of productivity. I am thankful that God provided for me in those years. Our eternal dignity consists in the fact that we can have a history!